


Leporiphobia

by May



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Blood, Gen, Rabbits, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 12:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8372665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/May/pseuds/May
Summary: The Magic Box gets a new statue. Everybody loves it (except Anya)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [storm_queen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/storm_queen/gifts).



The statue's eyes are green like the Spring, like cat's eyes, like primordial monster ooze. There have been many statues in Sunnydale with an eternity inside them, but few have seemed this conspirational. There's something it shares with you, something basic and instictual, or maybe just something like a joke.

"It's amazing," breathes Tara. She tangles her fingers together at her waist, and it's clear she wants to touch it. Its surface looks worn smooth, despite the brightness of its eyes.

"It's really very old," says Giles, who has seen the statue drawn in so many books. Both what it is, and what it's representing. "Definitely the oldest thing we have."

"It's so cute!" exclaims Dawn. She claps her hands gently together, just beneath her chin, and it makes her smile more broadly than she has in a while. The statue is full and round in the body, like something soft.

"It's horrifying," mutters Anya. Her body usually holds a fractious sort of energy, but she seems as if wires are threading through her, and pulling her tight. "I know we need to have a variety of supplies and I am proud of the amount of things that we've sold, but this is going too far."

Beside her, Xander's arm around her shoulders seems loose and reassuring. "Don't worry, An. After Easter, we'll put it on sale and if it doesn't sell, we'll throw it out," he says.

Anya sighs, and it goes through the lines of her body. "Fine," she replies, pulling away to retreat into the back room. "But don't say I didn't warn you."

Xander glances at the statue for a moment, allows himself a giggle, and then follows Anya.

Anyway," picks up Giles, smoothly. " We should expect to sell this quite soon, since it's most potent at this time of year."

 

During the day, the statue maintains its glow, but curiously doesn't sell. However, people still turn towards it. Giles thinks it's almost just to stare at it. To some, it's just a curio-filled shop, so it doesn't surprise him that people might be fascinated by the eye-gems. However, even some regulars turn to share a glance with it. It was clearly a find, he thinks. A totem for bountiful things, a vector for goodwill.

Occasionally, people reach forward, and it almost seems as if they just want to brush it. Touching it for the sake of touching it rather than for examination. Anya was usually the self-appointed officer for intervening, but she was giving the statue a wide birth. She refused to do otherwise, so it fell to Giles to cough and give the kind of stare he used to give children who mistook the library for a lunchroom.

Anya is just enough on the wrong side of uncharacteristic that Giles feels concern rumble on the edge of his consciousness. Irrational fears are difficult, especially when there are so many things to be rationally frightened of.

Later, the gaze of statue feels nicely attuned to the hues of the evening. Giles enjoys the mellow lighg of the spring, before the California heat reaches its fullest. Today, he has an opportunity to relax in the quiet. He gives the shop a glance round before he leaves, and settles on the statue. He thinks, maybe, like he'd like to be meeting up with an old friend in the pub, or having a cigarette just after the rain.

 

The Magic Box is arranged according to suitability. The most dangerous things are stacked near the top, for reasons that don't need to be named. The safest things are kept on the lower shelves, as Giles thinks is most sensible. Among the safe products is a basket of soft, dried Pylian fruit. Ordered on occassion from inter-dimensional merchants, they can be used in milder spells and rituals for vitality. On their own, they're a sweet, iron-rich snack, no more harmful than plums or strawberries.

It's when a child reaches for the basket that he knows holds little bags of fruit. It's around his height, and he doesn't, at all, expect anything else. And then, he screams, like something that cuts through the quite afternoon ease of the shop. Everyone stares at the child, who stares at his own hand.

He watches a bead of blood drip down over his knuckles, and there's a sudden, quiet tension across every patron, tourist and regular alike. It snaps when the mother screams her child's name and scoops him up. He screams, his face red and pained, bright enough to make a firm rent across the peace.

Giles takes the moment to rush forward, swiping his glasses from his face in concern. Anya, blessedly, is behind him, the scream having jolted her from her unease. Giles isn't sure that he wants to deal with a screaming child and an irate mother by himself.

"What happened?" Anya's voice seems to match the child's in strength, if not quite pitch.

"What the hell is this?" The woman bends down and picks something up from the floor, and then holds it up like a trophy. Between her thumb and forefinger, is something small and sharp, and glossy black. There's a shard of white bone down its center. Old bone, Giles knows.

"It's a claw. A red dragon's claw," he finds himself saying. "I don't know what it was doing there, I'm terribly sorry."

The child watches him, his face drying, miserably sucking his finger. Giles avoids staring at him and speaks to his mother. "Is there anything we can do?"

It's later on, when Giles shuts up the shop, that he takes a look at the statue, again. It had stood forgotten for at least an hour, but its eyes are still so vividly green. He takes a moment to stare, and to think about old roads and tea and a good book. It's a sweet, blooming thought, even after the stress of the day.

The statue looks fuller, somehow, he thinks, as he locks the door behind him.


End file.
